Has anyone experienced being in a relationship with someone who has been subjected to emotional incest by their parent?

For much of the relationship, my boyfriend has had trouble being emotionally available for me and seems instantly irritated at the slightest presence of me feeling upset and needing comfort. He is barely able to connect with me even on good days and threatens to leave me all the time.

He also will look physically uncomfortable when he’s upset at me, almost like he feels like I’m going to molest him. I thought there was just something wrong with him like he was selfish until I met his mother.

Before meeting her, I noticed that they talked an awful lot on the phone and that he went to her for reassurance and closeness. She talked so sweetly on the phone, but I didn’t think it could have been her grooming and “seducing” him. The mother came to visit for a week, and my emotional needs weren’t even put in the backseat, they were flung out the window and run over.

She immediately became uncomfortably intimate with him in a conversational way, and he paid no attention to me. I tried to join in the conversation to get to know her, but she was focused on trying to be alone with him. I waited for hours, and at bedtime, I anticipated he would at least bid his mother goodnight and come to bed. Nope! He gave me a peck and said he was sleeping in the living room with her.

I was so hurt and confused, and I tried to tell myself that this was somehow normal. I couldn’t convince my heart not to hurt, and my stomach to not turn. His mother has a fiancee, and it is that man’s job to be physically and emotionally close to her.

However, it is my boyfriend who is fulfilling her emotional needs and spending hours upon end with her, while ignoring me. I tried to be involved like he said he wanted me to be, but I was treated like I was a needy pest, and then I was finally running off. They had their arguments and bickering, and I was blamed for all of that even when I wasn’t around. I was accused of ruining everything when I opened up to him that I felt lonely and missing an emotional connection with him.

It got to the point that he only interacted with me for sex, and that barely happened. His mother convinced him that he should leave me and that I’m crazy and selfish. Meanwhile, he is spending every waking second with her and even giving her back massages. I became very depressed and sick to my stomach, which only made them resent me more.

My boyfriend says he wants to be with me, but he said I embarrassed him and showed a bad side of myself. I was nothing but nice to his mother, and I didn’t bring up how I felt once. She made me feel like I was the mistress in my relationship. I don’t want to leave my boyfriend, but I don’t see things getting any better.

How can a woman be so dependent on her son to fulfill her emotional needs, and in some ways, even physical? I’m pretty disgusted and sad about it. How do I bring my concerns up to my boyfriend? So far, I’ve emphasized his rights to love who he wants, and his right to make grown man decisions about his life since he’s out of the nest.

He brought up his parent’s issues, and I told him that he is not responsible for how they feel.

A little backstory, the father abused the mother and cheated on her when my boyfriend was a kid. When my boyfriend was 12, the father left them without notice. I’m guessing the incest began when her needs stopped being met and she needed a shoulder to cry on.

“Incest,” you say. It’s just terrible. And then, this incestuous mother shows up to visit her son and after the first day stops your emotional needs from being met. Hazel, I’m so, so sorry.

It’s terrible, just terrible! Terrible. Terrible!TERRIBLE. Surely, your local community has Victim’s Funds to help you through such atrocities!

I’m here to tell you that recovery is possible with faith and hard work. First, you need to leave these people alone to their incest! Right? Move on! You deserve so much better! Would you treat cats kindly if you lived a hermit’s life alone? Just curious.

I need to know if you’d be nice to the cats before I make this recommendation.

How is Hazel a victim Midge? Hazel is a grown woman, and it sounds like she now realizes that her boyfriend does not truly love her. Hazel, why waste your life dealing with his baggage when he offers no emotional support to you?

Find somebody that will love you for you, and not love their mother more. Incest is a really strong word. He and his mom went to a very emotional time together when his father left, and they became really close. How is that incest when it is just a strong emotional bond? Your boyfriend already proved to you that he couldn’t be emotionally there for you.

Do you believe that will just change? I don’t think so, that is who he is. It sounds like you want to fix him at the expense of losing yourself. Us men cannot be fixed unless we realize we have a problem and take steps to fix ourselves. Hazel if you stay in this relationship I see nothing but sadness and loneliness in your future.

“Hazel, why waste your life dealing with his baggage when he offers no emotional support to you?”

Right? His mom breezes into town and within the first few hours, while they are catching up Hazel’s emotional needs, weren’t being met!! While they were incestuously “catching up” Hazel sat there, alone, not the focus of his attention and I seriously wonder why she didn’t call the police. It’s no surprise that she immediately “got sick” due to the incest she saw. She was physically ill (as am I).

Girl, run away, he grew up like that he will not change! Don’t waste your time. I have been years married with a guy like that and every single way we take always ends up pleasing her mother even against his own feelings. Run my dear, break up today, do not be like me. I wasted my young precious years.

Yeah, really completely let him go. You don’t owe him an explanation either because he really already knows.

I think it’s poor wording to call them a victim, because at a certain point no matter what you were subjected to when you had no say in your youth, there comes the point where you know right from wrong, and you choose to still go the other way.

Don’t feel bad for him because it’s a trap. Don’t think you’re going to rescue home from his reality either; he’s happy with it.

Incestuous or no like all relationships, if he didn’t want the one with his mom, he would have cut it off the same as with a regular girlfriend. His only out is himself.

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